


can i pull out something new?

by Princex_N



Series: the gentleness that comes not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it [2]
Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Angst, Autism, Autistic Erin Hunnicutt, Autistic Hawkeye, First Meetings, Gen, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Slash, Reunions, Separations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:49:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22243615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princex_N/pseuds/Princex_N
Summary: BJ is more than happy to be home. Really, he's thrilled beyond belief, happier than a clam, pleased as punch.And yet.
Relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt & Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, B. J. Hunnicutt/Peg Hunnicutt, Pre- B. J. Hunnicutt/Peg Hunnicutt/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce
Series: the gentleness that comes not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1601140
Comments: 6
Kudos: 121





	can i pull out something new?

**Author's Note:**

> Wound up deciding to create a series instead of a multi-chaptered fic, because every time I decided I was finished writing something, my brain threw me a new idea I couldn't let go of, and I have no idea how often that's going to keep happening with this concept lmao

Hawkeye can tell that he's not pretending half as well as he should be. 

He's not exactly surprised. Years of holding himself together, masking _just_ well enough to escape close scrutiny; there was always going to be a limit to his acting skills. The blow dealt by the incident on the bus had been enough to send him fraying over there - placed firmly in a hospital and then held rigid over a patient, unable to move past the lack of a goodbye he might have survived differently before. It's not exactly a surprise to realize that things are harder to hold together at home, with the external pressure of the army finally gone. 

His dad takes it in stride, which Hawkeye appreciates. Keeps his commentary on Hawkeye's lack of typical commentary light, fields questions and visits from concerned and curious neighbors, and fills the strange stillness of their house with chatter and noise where he can. 

(He doesn't know what they want from him. When they ask, what kind of answers are they looking for? A platitude? The propaganda? The reality? Hawkeye got used to being surrounded by people who took his long, winding, and too-direct manner of speaking in stride, but he remembers growing up here, remembers that there had been rules, but he can't remember what the rules are. And screwing up had consequences when he was a kid, so he doesn't want to find out what they might be now that he's a war-torn adult. Isn't it easier to just, stay quiet? Keep it all where the accidental blades can't slice into anyone else? Who cares if the memories are sharp enough to set him bleeding, what's a little more when he still feels covered in it?) 

Hawkeye wishes that he wasn't making this hard. He wants his dad to be able to be _glad_ that he's home, instead of just worried. Hawkeye knows that _he_ should be acting glad to be to be home, instead of just worrying.

And he _is_ glad to be out of Korea, free from the constant danger and bloodshed and grief, but somehow it's like he never considered that leaving all of that behind meant leaving everything (everyone) else, too. He got the relative closure of their goodbyes, but it's band-aids on the open wounds in his sides where they were torn away from him. 

It's not like he wants to go back; he wouldn't want any of them to go back. But, christ, would it be too much to ask for the camp to have been transplanted back home? Like leaving Korea was just another bug-out they all had to stick together through. They are a mobile unit, after all. 

Of course, he knows that's not possible. He is glad that they all got to go back to their lives and their families. 

But that doesn't stop him from constantly turning and expecting to see BJ there at his side, from thinking up jokes Klinger would like, waiting to hear Potter's voice or Charles's music or Margaret's no-nonsense tone or Mulcahy's quiet prayers. 

He doesn't want to try working at his father's clinic yet (he'd gone straight back to his foxhole in Korea but now that there's a _choice_ he's too scared out of his mind to go back. Every time he thinks about it he gets caught up in scaring everyone in the OR, of busted up bellies and grey little babies, and the thought of treating some kid's scraped knee when he doesn't know what might come leaping out of _him_ terrifies the hell out of him), but he also paces around like he's waiting for the call of incoming wounded to give him something to do. 

He's relieved to be free of the noise and chaos of too-close battlefields, but the aching silence of his room - the lack of quiet movements and the breathing of bunkmates - makes him want to crawl out of his skin and twist the pain of it free from his bones. 

He knows his dad notices the bruises, but for now they'll both keep pretending to ignore them. 

* * *

BJ is more than happy to be home. Really, he's thrilled beyond belief, happier than a clam, pleased as punch. 

And yet. 

He's ecstatic to see his family. To touch Peg, to hear Erin's little voice, to see them both in their home together, and him there with them. It's perfect, and everything he'd been waiting for since the day he shipped out. 

And yet he knows there's something missing, and he hates himself for thinking it. 

He tries not to let it show. Works hard to ensure that he's present in every moment and makes sure that they know that he is so happy to be there with them. It doesn't mean that he's not still thinking about it. BJ might be glad that Hawkeye wrung a proper goodbye out of him before they left, but that doesn't change the fact that he still wishes they'd never had to say it in the first place. 

As happy as he is to be home, he can't help but see Hawkeye in the way Peggy tosses her head back when she laughs, in the meticulous way Erin inspects and eats her food, in the skipping lilt of her walk when she paces around the living room, and the note of concern in Peg's voice when she asks how he slept. 

Korea took a lot from him, he just wasn't expecting coming home to rob him too. 

"You're allowed to miss them," Peggy whispers one night, curled over his shoulder as he re-reads new letters (the way he used to with hers, and isn't that funny? Or maybe it's just sad.) "Especially him."

The words are a break in the dam he's been trying to build since his jeep first drove off. "It's terrible," he admits. "I am so, so happy to be back with you. I just wish I hadn't had to leave all of them behind to do it." He leaves it general, it's not like it's a lie, but they both know who he's really talking about. 

"You're worried about him," she says - an old observation, finally spoken. And there's no way for it to be denied. 

"He was already on rocky ground when we left," he tells her, even though she's heard the story before. "And I hoped that finally getting away would help, but it seems like the change did more harm than good, and I can't stand being too far away to help." 

He doesn't say that 'too far away to help' had always felt like anything further than the distance between their cots in the swamp, or their tables in the OR, but he gets the sense that she already knows. 

Peg hums in acknowledgement, in recognition, and BJ wonders if she's thinking about the way Erin screams and cries with every change in the schedule or shift of the furniture. (BJ loves his daughter, loves her for _her_ and only that, but that doesn't change the fact that every other thing she does sends echoes down memory lane that make him light up as much as it makes him hurt.) 

"Do you think he'd want to visit?" she asks. "Or maybe we'd be better to visit him, but I think it'd be easier for us to make room than to make him and his dad clear space for all three of us." 

She speaks so plainly that BJ can hardly believe it, but his wife has always been made of extraordinary and powerful stuff. 

"You'd let it? Just like that?" 

'It', like they both know that they're not just talking about a war buddy coming out for a visit, like they both know that they're talking about something a little more than that.

Peg raises an eyebrow delicately. "We haven't spoken about it plainly, but we talked about it plenty. I've had lots of time to get used to the idea and to really consider it. Not to mention that ever since he sent that first letter, I've been dying to meet him. I think it'd be good for me, and for Erin, and for you, and if it would be good for him too, then what more do we need?" 

He kisses her, and tries to put all of the love and gratitude and relief he's feeling into it. 

He thinks she gets the message.

* * *

Despite her previous correspondence and her husband's stories, Peggy still isn't quite sure what to expect from Hawkeye Pierce. 

She's heard plenty, and imagined more, but from the sound of things, he's always been difficult to pin down in thoughts or writing, none of it quite living up to reality. Peggy supposes that's true for most folk, but wouldn't be surprised if it was especially true for Hawkeye, more than most. 

Then again, Peg would never have pinned her or her husband as the types others might consider 'deviant', so what does she know about expectations? 

Hawkeye Pierce comes into Peg's house hot on BJ's heels with a smile on his face, not quite the folk hero of BJ's stories or the strangely insightful handwriting of his letters, but something entirely his own. He looks worn in a way BJ had when he'd first come home (a way BJ doesn't look anymore), he stumbles over his words when he shakes her hand enthusiastically, and she has a hard time not looking at the matching damp spots on his and BJ's collars, the way they stand just a little closer than most might. 

"Sorry," he laughs, eyes darting away from hers in restless movements. "I went from having too many people to talk to, to almost none. I'm out of practice. It's wonderful to meet you though, I've heard so much about you."

His apology is not a blow meant to land - not meant to be a blow at all - but Peggy sees BJ flinch all the same. 

"Well, hopefully we can get you back up to snuff while you're here," she replies airily, and carefully doesn't say 'before you leave'. 

(She's been in the man's presence for all of two minutes, but all the same, this is the man who took care of her husband when she could not, who has already helped her take care of her daughter in ways she wouldn't have been able to otherwise, and she finds herself wanting to return the favor; he looks like he needs it.) 

"This must be Erin," he says, changing the topic with barely noticeable discomfort, squatting down to her level. "I've heard a lot about you, especially. Ever get a hang of the whole toilet thing?" 

Erin is still only stringing half-coherent sentences together, but Hawkeye talks to her as easily as he would an adult, no change of tone or pitch in sight. 

Her eyes wander his face for a moment - more than she gives most strangers. "Hawk?" she finally asks, twisting her hands together. 

She's not very good with faces, but this one she almost had no chance of not knowing - BJ has been showing her photos ever since he came home; she could probably recognize any member of the 4077th from a good few yards away. 

"Oh! You know me!" Hawkeye cries, his fingers fluttering as he rocks back on his heels. "She knows me," he repeats, lifting his gaze to BJ's, then Peg's, as if they might not have known. 

"Of course she does," is all Peg says in response. As if it might be impossible to think otherwise, entirely out of the question that any one of them might not know him or be willing to let him into their lives. 

The matching grins on his and her husband's faces makes her think that there never was any other option. 

**Author's Note:**

> my series titles are slowly starting to get out of control 
> 
> [my tumblr](http://www.princex-n.tumblr.com)


End file.
